If we
desire to represent the course of nature in terms of human thought,
and assume that it was intended to be that which it is, we must say
that its governing principle is intellectual and not moral; that it is
a materialized logical process, accompanied by pleasures and pains,
the incidence of which, in the majority of cases, has not the
slightest reference to moral desert. That the rain falls alike upon
the just and the unjust, and that those upon whom the Tower of Siloam
fell were no worse than their neighbours, seem to be Oriental modes of
expressing the same conclusion.
In the strict sense of the word "nature," it denotes the sum of the
phenomenal world, of that which has been, and is, and will be; and
society, like art, is therefore a part of nature. But it is
convenient to distinguish those parts of nature in which man plays the
part of immediate cause, as some thing apart; and, therefore, society,
like art, [203] is usefully to be considered as distinct from nature.
It is the more desirable, and even necessary, to make this
distinction, since society differs from nature in having a definite
moral object; whence it comes about that the course shaped by the
ethical man--the member of society or citizen--necessarily runs
counter to that which the non-ethical man--the primitive savage, or
man as a mere member of the animal kingdom--tends to adopt.
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